The invention relates to an apparatus for the automatic glazing of cars, particularly, an apparatus for distinguishing one type of car body from another and setting a window glass of the distinguished car to the body shell accurately by compensating for position variations of the window glass by means of a robot with T.V. cameras.
An apparatus of this kind is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,303. This apparatus is one for setting a window glass to the body shell having a synchronized relation with the movement of the conveyor while variations of the window glass in the vertical and transverse directions with respect to the window frame are compensated for by means of four to six proximity sensors provided on the mobile tool. This apparatus, however, has disadvantages in that it can be used only in connection with the same cars and at the same locations. Because the proximity sensors are used as detecting means, only the distance between the tool and the body shell can be detected, and moreover there is no way to cope with irregular situation such as the body shell being out of the detectable range of the proximity sensors.
Further, another apparatus of this kind is known from the description on pages 125 to 128 of Sensor Review; published by IFS Publication Ltd., Bedford, England. In this apparatus, a robot is used and, as shown in FIG. 13, two cameras Cc, Cd provided at upper position of the gripping tool for a window glass, two other cameras Ca, Cb respectively provided at lateral positions of the gripping tool and floodlight projectors (not shown) are used as the position detecting means. Further, two stepping motors Ma, Mb for vertical movement and limited rotation of the gripping tool and one stepping motor Mc for transverse movement of the gripping tool are used. The cameras respectively include a 256-diode self-scanning array. The robot detects the position variations by the cameras and compensates the position variations by means of the stepping motors when setting a window glass. In this apparatus, however, the position of the robot arm is not compensated and only the position of the gripping tool is compensated. This method is disadvantageous when the working time allowed to the robot is short, because the sensing of the position variation needs five or six seconds which is considered to be a long time.
An object of the invention is to provide accurate automatic glazing of cars.
Another object of the invention is to provide an automatic glazing apparatus which is capable of distinguishing different kinds of body shells and setting a window glass to the body shell accurately by compensating the position of the window glass.